Originally by: CCP Whisper

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Boo hoo. Cry some more.

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Originally by: CCP Ytterbium

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Edited by: CCP Ytterbium on 20/02/2009 00:47:37
For testing it ourselves, ship roles won't be only useful, they will just be essential in w-space space. Blobbing will not be an option due to the Wormhole mass limitation anyway. You will have to think outside the classic PvE approach and consider them as real players to get through it .

Will a few hard Sleeper battleship destroy a carrier? Definately, because bringing a solo carrier against a few player battleships would have the same result.

Will they destroy a whole gang? Not if the fleet can manage itself, possess varied ship classes and proper coordination. We never said it was going to be easy; expect losses in the process, because just like in real player encounters, Sleepers will know where to hurt.

But in all cases, we invite you all to reserve your judgement until you actually fight them. Again, Sleepers are sorted into different difficulty tiers, and it is possible to solo some of the encounters in wormhole space, but even these fights will be challenging.

Finally, concerning possible Sleeper boosted capabilities versus players, I will respond that human pilots will always have an advantage at the end, because no matter how we tweak them, balance them, change them, players will always find ways to finally adapt as they get to know them. At the moment you are facing heavy losses because of their novelty, but we expect pilots to come up with smart ways of killing them quite fast. That is part of the challenge, part of making this whole part of the expansion worthwhile. We may change Sleeper capabilities in the future depending on the outcome, nothing is set in stone and covered with ten layers of concrete.

Of course, there may be situations that need to be looked into at the time being, which is the whole point of having them deployed on Singularity in the first place. Remember, this is a test server, and we are constantly monitering the situation until we reach an acceptable final solution.

For years, we have been asked to come up with more difficult, challenging PvE situations where NPCs would behave more like real players than floating bounties waiting to be collected. Some wondered what was the point of facing and destroying dozen of NPC ships solo again and over again. We are now granting this wish, bringing you proper PvE battles where you will struggle for survival. Managing to get through this will not only bring proper rewards, but also a feeling of achievement.

And this is coming with Apocrypha.

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Originally by: CCP Ytterbium

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Edited by: CCP Ytterbium on 20/02/2009 00:47:37
For testing it ourselves, ship roles won't be only useful, they will just be essential in w-space space. Blobbing will not be an option due to the Wormhole mass limitation anyway. You will have to think outside the classic PvE approach and consider them as real players to get through it .

Will a few hard Sleeper battleship destroy a carrier? Definately, because bringing a solo carrier against a few player battleships would have the same result.

Will they destroy a whole gang? Not if the fleet can manage itself, possess varied ship classes and proper coordination. We never said it was going to be easy; expect losses in the process, because just like in real player encounters, Sleepers will know where to hurt.

But in all cases, we invite you all to reserve your judgement until you actually fight them. Again, Sleepers are sorted into different difficulty tiers, and it is possible to solo some of the encounters in wormhole space, but even these fights will be challenging.

Finally, concerning possible Sleeper boosted capabilities versus players, I will respond that human pilots will always have an advantage at the end, because no matter how we tweak them, balance them, change them, players will always find ways to finally adapt as they get to know them. At the moment you are facing heavy losses because of their novelty, but we expect pilots to come up with smart ways of killing them quite fast. That is part of the challenge, part of making this whole part of the expansion worthwhile. We may change Sleeper capabilities in the future depending on the outcome, nothing is set in stone and covered with ten layers of concrete.

Of course, there may be situations that need to be looked into at the time being, which is the whole point of having them deployed on Singularity in the first place. Remember, this is a test server, and we are constantly monitering the situation until we reach an acceptable final solution.

For years, we have been asked to come up with more difficult, challenging PvE situations where NPCs would behave more like real players than floating bounties waiting to be collected. Some wondered what was the point of facing and destroying dozen of NPC ships solo again and over again. We are now granting this wish, bringing you proper PvE battles where you will struggle for survival. Managing to get through this will not only bring proper rewards, but also a feeling of achievement.

And this is coming with Apocrypha.

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Originally by: Lucien Tripoux

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well, i totally agree with many of the things said above by ccp ytterbium, i'm just a little worried 'bout the drone aggro that i feel a little too systematic and too quick to let a role to drone boats... i've tried logistic drones, they got destroyed as quickly, maybe electronic warfare drones can have any use even if i doubt of it, many of the ewdrones being crap. I'm not crying for my toy, i just think that as drones are used in pvp, they should be usable against sleepers.

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Originally by: Lana Torrin

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Originally by: Lucien Tripoux

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well, i totally agree with many of the things said above by ccp ytterbium, i'm just a little worried 'bout the drone aggro that i feel a little too systematic and too quick to let a role to drone boats... i've tried logistic drones, they got destroyed as quickly, maybe electronic warfare drones can have any use even if i doubt of it, many of the ewdrones being crap. I'm not crying for my toy, i just think that as drones are used in pvp, they should be usable against sleepers.

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Perhaps allow them to still target drones but lower the sleepers tracking a little so they don't instapop all drones... Getting rid of small/medium drones in PvP takes quite a bit of time (ok, 30-40 seconds, but that's a lot of time your not shooting at the enemy) and drones only need to be that useful..

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Originally by: Minigin

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Originally by: Lana Torrin

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Originally by: Lucien Tripoux

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well, i totally agree with many of the things said above by ccp ytterbium, i'm just a little worried 'bout the drone aggro that i feel a little too systematic and too quick to let a role to drone boats... i've tried logistic drones, they got destroyed as quickly, maybe electronic warfare drones can have any use even if i doubt of it, many of the ewdrones being crap. I'm not crying for my toy, i just think that as drones are used in pvp, they should be usable against sleepers.

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Perhaps allow them to still target drones but lower the sleepers tracking a little so they don't instapop all drones... Getting rid of small/medium drones in PvP takes quite a bit of time (ok, 30-40 seconds, but that's a lot of time your not shooting at the enemy) and drones only need to be that useful..

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no because then every man woman and child will drop light drones and make all the rats target them first to give virtually limitless time for them to kill the rats.

all of you drone users that got so used to going into lvl 4 missions and then going afk will have to learn some new tricks.

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Originally by: Minigin

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no because then every man woman and child will drop light drones and make all the rats target them first to give virtually limitless time for them to kill the rats.

all of you drone users that got so used to going into lvl 4 missions and then going afk will have to learn some new tricks.

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Originally by: Katarlia Simov

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Unless sleeper salvage is going to be so fantastically pricey that loosing a dozen t2 fitted to get it, its all a bit much.

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Corporation RP channel: "PlacidReborn"

Originally by: Lana Torrin

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I'm sorry. i made an assumption that the new and spiffy AI would realize (eventually) that it couldn't hit them and go back to smashing the drone controlling ships like normal players do.

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Originally by: Gabriel Karade

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Is this true or just hearsay? Don't believe it myself...
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to: "killing spider tanked carriers" (what 2? 3?)

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Corporation RP channel: "PlacidReborn"

Originally by: Pytria Le'Danness

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If someone lost a BS while gaining Sleeper items, he is going to put them up at a price that makes him regain the money. Add the fact that logistics to WH space is problematic and people want recompensation for that too and we're looking at high prices for the bits.

This in turn will drive up T3 component prices and in the end make T3 cruisers so expensive that noone can afford them. This again will lead to even less production because with a limited number of buyers all the effort is not worth it.

When I last checked on SiSi the hulls required some items from the tougher rats as well, so someone HAS to fight them, win and salvage AND put the items on the market. If there is not a big supply of Sleeper items needed to build the ships putting up a POS and doing all the shenanigans needed to build T3 will not be profitable.

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Originally by: CCP Ytterbium

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Edited by: CCP Ytterbium on 20/02/2009 00:47:37
For testing it ourselves, ship roles won't be only useful, they will just be essential in w-space space. Blobbing will not be an option due to the Wormhole mass limitation anyway. You will have to think outside the classic PvE approach and consider them as real players to get through it .

Will a few hard Sleeper battleship destroy a carrier? Definately, because bringing a solo carrier against a few player battleships would have the same result.

Will they destroy a whole gang? Not if the fleet can manage itself, possess varied ship classes and proper coordination. We never said it was going to be easy; expect losses in the process, because just like in real player encounters, Sleepers will know where to hurt.

But in all cases, we invite you all to reserve your judgement until you actually fight them. Again, Sleepers are sorted into different difficulty tiers, and it is possible to solo some of the encounters in wormhole space, but even these fights will be challenging.

Finally, concerning possible Sleeper boosted capabilities versus players, I will respond that human pilots will always have an advantage at the end, because no matter how we tweak them, balance them, change them, players will always find ways to finally adapt as they get to know them. At the moment you are facing heavy losses because of their novelty, but we expect pilots to come up with smart ways of killing them quite fast. That is part of the challenge, part of making this whole part of the expansion worthwhile. We may change Sleeper capabilities in the future depending on the outcome, nothing is set in stone and covered with ten layers of concrete.

Of course, there may be situations that need to be looked into at the time being, which is the whole point of having them deployed on Singularity in the first place. Remember, this is a test server, and we are constantly monitering the situation until we reach an acceptable final solution.

For years, we have been asked to come up with more difficult, challenging PvE situations where NPCs would behave more like real players than floating bounties waiting to be collected. Some wondered what was the point of facing and destroying dozen of NPC ships solo again and over again. We are now granting this wish, bringing you proper PvE battles where you will struggle for survival. Managing to get through this will not only bring proper rewards, but also a feeling of achievement.

And this is coming with Apocrypha.

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Originally by: Shadowsword

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Edited by: Shadowsword on 19/02/2009 23:20:47

Originally by: Rex Lashar

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When battleships first came out in Castor, a lot of people died. I mean a lot. I died on the first day, in the first hour after patch went up to a 250k Armageddon - despite testing BS npcs on SISI for weeks.

I had no problems killing players, even hardcore pirates. But for a long time I feared NPCs.

Eventually however, people figured out how to rat them. They lacked the experience and proper setups initially because all they ever did was chain easy cruiser rats in Battleships. If Sleepers take teamwork and some actual combat skills to take down, then eventually, such things will become common and Sleeper NPCs won't appear so scary.

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I, too, remember the glorious days where ratting in 0.0 was risky business. I wouldn't mind if it were the case here.

But it's different.

Back then we didn't know what the hell we were doing. We learned, we improved, we dominated pve. But what is left to improve here? We KNOW game mechanics, how to use them to maximum effect. We got ship setups down pat, they're optimised as much as it's possible to be. We use a combinaison of ships and hardware that is much, much better that what we came up with 4 years ago. Our skills, too, are better. We also got extensive pvp experience, we know how to work in small gangs, we have vocal communications.

The thing is, we don't have much room anymore for improvement.

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Originally by: RedClaws

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... will the rewards be able to compensate that?

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Corporation RP channel: "PlacidReborn"

Originally by: Pytria Le'Danness

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Originally by: RedClaws

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... will the rewards be able to compensate that?

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Rewards are what the market makes them. Sleepers will drop some things, and i doubt there will be NPC buy orders for them. Thus you get what players are willing to pay for it. In fact how it will turn out is that the items are priced after the losses gaining them caused.
Those people we are good at fighting sleepers or got lucky will be able to price the stuff lower. And that's a good thing in my eyes - market darwinism in action.

However this only works if there is enough demand for the items; if they turn out to be too expensive few people will buy them and building them will happen rarely. This in turn might drive the price down as people try to recoup their losses at least partially.

In the end it all depends on the drop rate and the requirements to build T3, all of which isn't set in stone yet.

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Originally by: Pottsey

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CCP Ytterbium said "For years, we have been asked to come up with more difficult, challenging PvE situations where NPCs would behave more like real players than floating bounties waiting to be collected. Some wondered what was the point of facing and destroying dozen of NPC ships solo again and over again. We are now granting this wish, bringing you proper PvE battles where you will struggle for survival. Managing to get through this will not only bring proper rewards, but also a feeling of achievement."
Yes you grated that wish but you did it by adding in the parts Of PvP that PvE people don't like to PvE. I do like the overall idea behind sleepers but as a PvE pilot I don't like the PvP elements that got added like pod killing. In a lot of ways Sleepers feel like PvE content for PvP players. Not PvE content for PvE players. Which is good for some people and bad for others.

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Originally by: Pottsey

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CCP Ytterbium said "For years, we have been asked to come up with more difficult, challenging PvE situations where NPCs would behave more like real players than floating bounties waiting to be collected. Some wondered what was the point of facing and destroying dozen of NPC ships solo again and over again. We are now granting this wish, bringing you proper PvE battles where you will struggle for survival. Managing to get through this will not only bring proper rewards, but also a feeling of achievement."
Yes you grated that wish but you did it by adding in the parts Of PvP that PvE people don't like to PvE. I do like the overall idea behind sleepers but as a PvE pilot I don't like the PvP elements that got added like pod killing. In a lot of ways Sleepers feel like PvE content for PvP players. Not PvE content for PvE players. Which is good for some people and bad for others.

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